I am writing this column on Labour Day, and since thinking about a subject for a full column is too much like work, I’m going to go with a few Random Ramblings.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about the game of cricket (as opposed to the insect of the same name). Last week I found a video on YouTube of weird dismissals in cricket. None of these were great catches, or perfect throws to knock over the wickets.
No, these were weird. From batters having their helmets knocked off and falling onto the wickets to batters overbalancing and falling into the wickets themselves, they definitely qualified as weird. I did have a couple of favourites, though, including the very first one, where the batter took a step back to get a better angle on the ball as it came in, swung, . . . and completely knocked over all three of his own wickets with the bat. The other one, which was somewhat more painful for one of those involved, was a bowler going down on one knee as he pitched up a ball. The batter hit it back down the line, low, it caromed off the other batter’s bat, hit the bowler in the head as he lay there, and ricocheted onto the wickets. That is an out, very painfully.
Something I liked about that one, watching it on replay, was how the batter at the same end as the bowler, the one whose bat the ball ricocheted off, immediately dropped the bat and checked to see if the bowler was OK after being hit in the head by the ball. He was, and any hurt was probably alleviated by knowing he had used his head to get an out.
I am starting to suspect the new song for Christmas this year in Prince George will be “I’m Dreaming of a Smoky Christmas”. We go for a couple of days with clear skies (or at least non-smoky ones) and then the smoke reappears. It doesn’t sound like the fire situation is getting much better, and as we know from previous years, smoke can travel a long way to annoy us in Prince George.
I seem to recall the real bad smoke we had a few years ago was actually coming from fires in Siberia. This year we’ve had smoke hit us from the fires to the south, the west and the east at different times.
It makes it very hard to get out and do the walking I like to do for exercise. This region isn’t the only one, either. The second day of the recent Tour de Cure bike event, with the Wheelin’ Warriors of the North in full representation, had to be called partway through because the skies down south were too smoky.